End the Occupation

We’re now six months into the occupation of Iraq and the U.S. promises of peace, security and democracy in Iraq remain painfully unfulfilled. With thousands of Iraqi civilians and nearly 200 U.S. soldiers killed since the U.S. captured Baghdad in mid-April, it has become abundantly clear that U.S. occupying forces have failed to provide stability, security or democracy to the Iraqi people.

Iraqi resistance to the occupation shows no sign of letting up. Protests began in April with major demonstrations of up to 20,000 in some cities declaring, “No to Saddam, No to America, Yes to Islam, Yes to Democracy.” Since then, guerrilla attacks on U.S. troops have increased precipitously. Rather than isolated attacks by remnants of the Ba’ath Party or foreign terrorists, it is becoming increasing clear that these attacks are a reflection of the widespread hostility of the Iraqi people toward the occupying forces.

Living standards have also fallen drastically in Iraq since the U.S. invasion. Security remains virtually nonexistent in many parts of Iraq, as the U.S. occupying forces have proven incapable of providing security to the Iraqi people. There has been a major increase in violent crime throughout Iraq. Many women refuse to leave their homes, even to attend school or go to work, because of their fears for their own security.

And efforts at economic recovery have fared no better than attempts at security: the Iraqi economy has declined 22 percent this year. The Labor Ministry estimates that 12 million Iraqis—fully 70 percentof the country’s workers—are unemployed. Meanwhile, the U.S. and other foreign corporations and contractors have been importing cheap labor from Southeast Asia to work on the rebuilding of Iraq, since Iraqi workers “are more vulnerable to bad guy influence,” as The Financial Times detailed last Tuesday.

The 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq face a difficult situation. Many recognize that they are little more than an occupying, rather than a liberating, army. Half of troops responding in a recent survey by the Pentagon-funded newspaper Stars & Stripes said that morale was either low or very low in their units and that they did not plan to reenlist. One-third said they would characterize the war in Iraq as having little or no value. On Wednesday, Reuters reported the Army’s disclosure that at least 13 soldiers have committed suicide in Iraq. Despite these conditions—Bush, who himself avoided serving in Vietnam—saw fit to egg on attacks against American troops with his infamous call to “Bring ’em on.” The troops, including many Army reservists and National Guard units, are anxious to return home to their lives and families, but remain uncertain of their future, especially given the recent doubling of tours of duty. An average of three to six soldiers are killed every week, with another 40 wounded; 13 to 15 attacks on occupation forces occur daily.

The aftermath of the war has only confirmed the analysis made by the anti-war movement prior to the war. Bush’s two central reasons for war—Saddam Hussein’s regime’s alleged linkage with al Qaeda and Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction—have proven to be nothing but fabrications concocted to win public support for the war. Furthermore, as part of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” the U.S. has thwarted any attempts by Iraqis to govern themselves. No elections have occurred anywhere in Iraq. In June, the U.S. called off plans for local elections and appointed hand-picked mayors, much to the chagrin of many Iraqis. American forces also handpicked an Iraqi Governing Council, though L. Paul Bremer still maintains veto power over their decisions. The Iraqis recognize that this governing council is a joke and merely an effort by the U.S. to find Iraqis to collaborate with its own plans. Now the U.S. is even trying to make deals with tribal leaders, as they have done in Afghanistan where the U.S. military is responsible for restoring many Northern Alliance warlords to power. There is still no timeline for the transfer of power to Iraqis.

Many people have argued in favor of a U.N.-controlled occupying force to help bring stability and democracy in Iraq. Yet the U.N. has repeatedly proven itself to be nothing more than a fig-leaf for U.S. imperialism, providing the veneer of international support for naked U.S. aggression. Since the war’s official end, the U.N, has only served to justify the U.S.-controlled occupation. The unanimous Security Council vote on Thursday approved the U.S. plan for Iraq, ensuring that the Coalition Provisional Authority will remain the main power in Iraq for some time to come. The architects of this invasion have led American troops into a quagmire and they preside over the misery of the Iraqi people. They must be stopped. The Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice will be holding a rally today in front of the science center, as a prelude to a national rally scheduled for Saturday in Washington, D.C., to send just that message.

Iraqis have the right to control their own future free from the interference of foreign armies, governments and corporations intent on plundering the oil resources and people of Iraq for their own gain. The U.S. has already spent $80 billion on the war and Congress just approved another approximately $87 billion. And I can hazard a guess that Bush might have a harder time convincing the nine million unemployed Americans—or 12 million unemployed Iraqis—that those billions have been well-spent.

Daniel DiMaggio ’04, a social studies concentrator in Leverett House, is a member of the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice.